Dropping, Withdrawing, Transferring: What’s What?

Katie Burckhalter

As the school year is now back in full swing, there comes a time where schedules need to be edited. Is a student no longer attending your school and you need to remove him from the class? Or, does the student need to transfer from Honors Geometry in period 1 to Honors Geometry in period 4? Not sure how to handle these changes? Let’s review the 3 different changes we can make to student schedules.

Drop:

This would be used if the school does not want to keep any record that the student was enrolled in the class and does not want to keep any corresponding grades, skills, or attendance. As an example, a student may be dropped from a course if they are no longer attending the school.

Withdraw:

This would be used if the school does want to keep a record that the student was enrolled in the class along with any corresponding grades, skills, or attendance. An example would be if a student had to transfer from Honors Economics to Economics halfway through the term.

Transfer:

This would be used if a student moved from one class section to another of the same course. For example, a student had to transfer from History in period 2 to History in period 7 because the student prefers a different teacher.

For more information or additional details about what happens with grades/attendance with each of those options (including a fancy grid to print out and hang at your desk), refer to How to determine whether to withdraw, drop, or transfer a student.